Accedo, a global market leader in TV application solutions has developed a sports and soccer application for ESPN, a Walt Disney company.

ESPN in Brasil is one of the main sports cable television networks with 8.7 million subscribers. The TV network has important broadcasting rights for international competitions, such as 2014 Fifa World Cup, UEFA Champions League, La Liga Premier League, NFL, NBA and MLB.

The service is available on LG Smart TVs in Brazil, enabling consumers to enjoy catch-up TV sports content on the TV screen.

“We are delighted to be working with ESPN on this application,” commented Michael Lantz, CEO, Accedo. “Sports applications are the perfect blend of interactivity and content, and are very appealing for consumers. This TV app includes catch-up TV, which we believe will enhance consumer uptake and loyalty to the traditional broadcast channels.

”“Brazil ended 2013 with more than 17 million Pay TV subscribers, the largest Pay TV market in Latin America,“ commented Jerónimo Macanas, VP LatAm, Accedo. “With such a demanding TV market, new OTT services become the key differentiator for the viewers during sports events, like for instance the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. ESPN’s brand leadership in the region is the perfect partner for innovation around OTT in this fast growing digital market.”

“Our priority was to deliver an innovative and appealing service to our customers, bringing on-demand sports content through connected devices,” commented Luis Olivalves, New Business Director of ESPN Brazil.

About the Author

Founder of The Hackfest, publisher of TV App Market and global expert on Media & TV innovation, Kastelein is an award winning publisher and futurist. He has guest lectured at MIT Media Lab, University of Cologne, sat on media convergence panel at 2nd EU Digital Assembly in Brussels, and worked with broadcasters such as the BBC, NPO, RTL (DE and NL), Eurosport, NBCU, C4, ITV, Seven Network and others on media convergence strategy - Social TV, OTT, DLNA and 2nd Screen etc.

He is a Fellow of the UK Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and UK Royal Television Society (RTS) member.

A versatilist & autodidact, his leadership ability, divergent and synthetic thinking skills evolved from sailing the world 24000 miles+ offshore in his 20′s on sailboats under 12m.

He spent 10 years in the Caribbean media & boating industry as a professional sailor before returning to Europe, to Holland.

A Creative Technologist and Canadian (Dutch/Irish/English/Metis) his career began in the Canadian Native Press and is now a columnist for The Association for International Broadcasting and writes for Wired, The Guardian & Virgin. His writings have been translated into Polish, German and French.

One of Kastelein's TV formats was optioned by Sony Pictures Television in 2012.

Currently involved in a number of startups including publishing TV App Market online, The Hackfest and Tripsearch TV. As CSO for Worldticketshop he helped build a $100m company.